Fester
by MiravsStella
Summary: Shelke is afraid of the dark, like many nine year olds.  Shelkero.  Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy VII.


What had prompted the collapses, Shelke knew not.

Maybe that was why she was wandering around Midgar, with little to no interest in her surroundings. The pink dress that Marlene had so thoughtfully lend her was already dirtied and torn, but she didn't particularly feel very guilty about it. The girl should not have been wearing such delicate clothing when she lived in the city of Edge. She was ignorant of what she was seeing, and had been for several hours now.

Her stomach rumbled.

It didn't matter.

Her eyelids were drooping.

She couldn't care less.

On her left, a monster came into view. Shelke blinked owlishly.

"Hello," she deadpanned. "Where is Vincent Valentine?"

The thing didn't give an answer. When she took a step forward, it howled and fled. Shelke sighed. That was the third time now that that had happened. Everything ran from her.

Everything.

"You wanted to find Vincent, right?" asked Shalua from beside her.

"Who's Vincent?" Shelke murmured, confused. "I've never heard that name before." She turned to look at her sister, expecting some kind of explanation from her older sibling, but stared when she realized that it wasn't Shalua standing there.

"The sun's gone down. You know what that means, right?" Shelke was staring into her own eyes, a burning yellow that was forever imprinted into her memory. The person facing her smiled, and she felt her mouth tug at her painfully to do the same. Some puppeteer was pulling her strings again. She still wasn't sure who it was, but she knew that they had a wing.

"The sun isn't going down. It's coming up," she replied, still speaking in a dead tone. As she spoke, she looked to her right, where the sun was descending on the horizon. To the left, the same circle was ascending into the rose colored sky. What was it? Limbo? Something that she would search for, but never be able to explain, in one of her Synaptic Net Dives? Shelke didn't know, and for once didn't feel much of a pull to find out.

"Hiya Shelke! Can you laugh?"

Not really such an odd question, considering who it was coming from. Shelke saw the mischievous look on Yuffie's face, and opened her mouth, drawing in air. How hard should it be, to huff it out quickly like humans did when they laughed?

It came out in a violent coughing fit.

Someone steadied her.

Partially masked face, dark eyes, metal wings that outlined him like a dying angel…

Shelke screamed.

She thrashed and screamed and writhed in the firm grasp, knowing deep inside that this was what had been prompting the collapses these days. Her fear was the pure and untainted fear that many children had: the fear of darkness. There was nothing else that could prompt this kind of frenzied terror to course through her veins, clouding every thought, cloaking her mind in the very thing she was so horrified by.

_"Then why hold it so close to yourself?"_

The voice was inside, outside, all around, inescapable. Nero had infected her, like an incurable disease, and he had put monsters inside her head.

Some of whom she had never even met.

The puppeteer lifted her up by the throat, but she was relieved; at least Nero was gone. She couldn't breathe, couldn't even speak.

That was okay. If the darkness was gone, then she would be okay.

Like a curious child, she wondered what Sephiroth was going to do to her. Skewer her with Masamune? Crush her neck in his grasp? Taunt her as he did Cloud, say that she too was a puppet with no memories of her own?

Abruptly, he dropped her.

Then he vanished. He never said anything. Almost as if she wasn't even worth talking to. The two suns bloodied the land, showing that Midgar was deserted once more. Shelke frowned. Perhaps now was the time for her to go home. Not a monster was in sight.

Not one that she could see. And she couldn't see herself.

And then she couldn't see anything.

Blind? No, no, no…

"No," she whispered. It wasn't possible. She'd been seeing only seconds ago. She couldn't be alone, alone in the darkness. She took a step forward, feeling sick when she still managed to step on the ground. This was not her imagination.

He was back.

"Go away!" she half screamed, half sobbed. "Leave me alone!"

_"I can't do that. You want me here."_

"He lies… that's a lie…" she mumbled to herself. Nothing was visible. He was still inexplicably _there, _surrounding her, in her head. And then she knew he was right in front of her, facing her, somewhere that he didn't belong again. He was too close; his mouth was against hers-

_No…_

It was entering her; she was drowning as his darkness filled her, corroding her lungs as she struggled to breathe, but the only thing that she inhaled was black. It hurt, it hurt-

_Please…_

And she was so cold. Shelve knew that her eyes were yellow right then. She shivered as numbness spread through her; the darkness was taking over, her worst fear was coming true. A laugh bubbled up inside, soon popped by the parasite invading her. It was-

_Delicious._

-Agonizing. She didn't know who she was.

He was gone; she could see again, but she could still feel it, inside of her, pulsating through her bloodstream. Her breath was stunted with gasps of pain, and she stared into dark brown eyes.

"Here you go!" said Yuffie cheerfully, handing Shelke the knife. She stared at it, utterly bemused. "You know what to do."

She looked to her left, then right. Left, right, left right…

…tick, tock…

…The suns were still there.

"Go on," whispered Shalua.

They both dissolved. And he was back.

Not Nero; Sephiroth.

"The little fool is finally going home," he said, smirking. His image was replaced with Nero's. She had a purpose.

The knife stabbed into him easily, only he didn't leak out blood, only darkness. Shelke danced away out of terror, trying to get away from it, and realized that it was gone from inside her, just gone, and it wouldn't bother her anymore. She almost sobbed with relief, and idly wondered how Yuffie had known how to end her suffering.

The image of Nero shifted, to become Sephiroth, then Yuffie, then Vincent, then Shalua, then Nero again, then Marlene, and then herself.

The world shattered.

Shelke gasped at the sudden pain in her chest, looking down with wide eyes at the weapon protruding from her body. She made a choking noise, looking around.

It was her room, in Seventh Heaven. Not Midgar's ruins.

_What?..._

She was dying.

And he was back, staring down at her in all his dark glory, face expressionless. Shelke felt pain, but not fear. His darkness came to her, caressing her with a gentleness that she could barely comprehend. It was melding them together, and a tiny part of her still clung to her body, unwilling to let go.

_"Let go, Shelke."_

She did. Or rather, she had to pry her fingers loose with her other hand. He smiled at her sadly. She smiled back.

The most agonizing thing was realizing that the darkness didn't hurt anymore.

* * *

><p>Yuffie Kisaragi walked back to her room in a trance.<p>

The burial had just taken place. She had been the one to find Shelke on the floor in her room, with a knife in her heart and a twisted perversion of a smile on her face. Vincent had disappeared shortly afterwards, probably to go blame himself again.

Yuffie knew that it had not been her doing, but she couldn't shake the feeling that it was her fault that Shelke died. The girl had not seemed suicidal, but, evidently…

She opened the door to her room, covering her mouth with her hand at the sight of who was sitting on her bed.

The red haired girl's yellow eyes seared into her own. Then she laughed, a sound that made Yuffie shudder. Her voice came out distorted.

_"You're next."_

It was inside her head and out, realized Yuffie.

She screamed.


End file.
